Scotland’s health minister has called on the Benedictine monks who make Buckfast Tonic Wine to show some “social responsibility” and stop selling the controversial drink to young people.

Alex Neil said it would be “ideal” if the monks of Buckfast Abbey in Deveon stopped making the drink altogether, but admitted that was not going to happen.

He added that the Scottish Government had no plans to ban the drink, but urged the monks to start selling it only in small quantities to older people.

Speaking after the abbot mounted a staunch defence of the product, Mr Neil said: “What he should do is adopt a policy of corporate social responsibility and say they are only going to sell Buckfast, if they are going to sell it at all, in very small quantities and not to young people but rather to people who are more accustomed to dealing with alcohol in all its guises.”

The monks have also been invited to visit Coatbridge, known as the “Buckie capital” of Scotland, to see the social problems linked to the abuse of the tonic wine.

Police have linked the drink to nearly 6,500 crime reports in the Strathclyde area in the last three years. It is stronger than most wines, containing 15 per cent alcohol by volume, while each 75cl bottle has as much caffeine as eight cans of Coca-Cola.

Buckfast is regarded as a particular problem in parts of Lanarkshire, where it has earned the nicknames “wreck the hoose juice”, “commotion potion” and “Coatbridge table wine”.

However, in his first interview on the subject, Abbot David Charlesworth mounted a staunch defence of the drink, suggesting the authorities might as well talk about banning whisky.

The monastery has been brewing Buckfast for nearly 100 years, and sold it in the 1920s with the message: “Three small glasses a day for good health and lively blood”.

Abbot Charlesworth said the monks were not making drugs, and the product was not made to be abused, adding: “Am I upset by how the tonic wine is used, of course I am it would be ridiculous to say otherwise. But we don't make a product for it to be abused. That's not the idea. We make a product that is a tonic wine.

“The fact that other people use it in an abusive way is something of another issue.

"It annoys me to think that these problems, all the social deprivation of an area of Scotland, is being put on our doorstep. That's not fair. I'm not producing drugs which I know are going to be used abusively.

"I don't want Buckfast Abbey to be associated with broken bottles and drunks. But is the product bad? No. I've heard people say we should ban Buckfast.

"If you ban Buckfast, ban Scottish whisky. It's alcohol, much stronger. But oh no they wouldn't do that. So they are picking on a particular thing as a conscience salver.”

According to Elaine Smith, the Labour MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston, the caffeine content of the drink is the major issue.

She said there was not a problem in Coatbridge with young people abusing whisky, but there was a problem with young people abusing Buckfast, which was synonymous with social problems.

She added: “Perhaps the abbot could come to Coatbridge and see some of the damage it causes.”

J Chandler & Co, which bottles and sells Buckfast, is currently taking legal action to stop Police Scotland adding its own anti-crime labels to bottle of the tonic wine.

Police Scotland declined to comment on the social impact of the drink because of the legal action.

Successive government ministers have highlighted Buckfast as a problem drink, although it accounts for less than one per cent of alcohol sales, and the Scottish Parliament has heard calls for it to be banned and for the caffeine content to be reduced.